Race, sex, war ... yep, it was a happening decade

By Frances Grant

The year is 1960, the place is the United States and the main players are the baby-boomers, a generation about to try its power on for size. The times, they are a-changin'.

Cultural revolution is in the air right from the start of The 60s, a two-part mini-series (TV3, tonight and tomorrow, 8.30 pm) compressing 10 years of social change into four hours of docudrama.

The show sets up two threads to its tour through a decade of American history.

It's a tale told from the viewpoint of two "regular" families - one white, middle-class and Catholic; the other black, Southern Baptists.

With two sides of the social spectrum established, the show gets right to the main flashpoints of the decade in its opening scenes: race, sex and war.

Teenager Katie Herlihy (Julia Stiles) gets into trouble for flaunting it too much for the nuns' liking when she dances the Twist at the school prom. Older brother Brian, the football jock, enlists in the Marines and goes off to Vietnam.

Meanwhile, black civil rights leader, the Rev Willie Taylor, and son Emmet, get beaten up by police in a segregated restaurant.

The paths of the families cross when younger Herlihy son Michael, the politically aware member of the family, heads off to the South to help to register black voters.

The individual characters, burdened by having to represent a slice of typical America, aren't much more than cliches. But they're certainly kept busy weaving a coherent story for a drama striving to include all the main events of a very happening decade.

The show's creator, film-maker Linda Obst (producer of One Fine Day, Sleepless
In Seattle and Contact among other films), has made it clear that The 60s is all about paying homage to a time fired by the belief that it was possible to change the world.

"I want more than anything for this series to be an invitation from my generation to my son's generation to ... see what it's like to be involved in speaking up and finding out that your voice does make a difference," she told the Washington Post.

The characters' storylines cover everything from the civil rights battles and anti-war protests to hippy love-and-drug culture.

The fictional action is combined with news footage to create, at times, a Forrest Gump-style effect.

While the show is often more heavy-handed than gripping, nostalgia fans will enjoy the glue: the soundtrack is co-star, with Bob Dylan's songs as anthems of the times.

Despite the patchiness of the drama, if you were around and remember the decade and fancy a trip down memory lane, The 60s offers a comprehensive round-up of an American epoch.

And if you weren't around in the 60s and wonder what all the fuss was about, the series captures the excitement and fervour of the new ideas inspiring the peace signs and powering the protests.